


Puppy Love

by bluflamingo



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Aliens Made Them Do It, Dogs, F/F, First Kiss, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2019-01-08 17:51:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12259173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluflamingo/pseuds/bluflamingo
Summary: Alicia tries to adopt a dog off-world.It's Atlantis, though; nothing ever works out that simply.





	Puppy Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tamoline](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tamoline/gifts).



> Tamoline asked for something tropish about the lighter side of Atlantis, where Vega lived - hopefully, this fits that bill.

Puppy Love

"No," Alison said as Alicia opened her mouth to make the argument she and Dusty had come up with while waiting at the gate. "And also, hell, no."

"But look at that face!" Alicia held the wriggly ball of black alien puppy out to Alison, who immediately took a large enough step backwards that she nearly fell down the steps leading to the stargate. "How can you say no to that face?"

Alison leaned in until her face was level with the puppy's, though she kept her feet firmly planted as far away from it as possible. "No," she said firmly.

The puppy licked her nose, which Alicia had to admit probably wouldn't help their argument – she loved dogs, but she still hated having her face licked. 

Dusty pressed the puppy's paws together. "Pwease, Dr Porter. I just want to come and live with you. I promise not to pee in the lab."

Alicia cracked up laughing at Dusty's puppy voice, drawing the attention of the team of scientists they'd been sent along with. Not that they'd really needed to tag along – Teldy had sent two teams of baby marines along to guard the botanists, who hadn't even strayed out of sight of the gate - but between Dusty only just being back on active duty after taking a bullet to the thigh in the last attack on the city, and Alicia herself being new to team command, a light day of loitering wasn't something either of them were going to turn down.

Though Alison hadn't been thrilled when she'd realized that any mission which included two thirds of her team would also include her, despite her complete non-interest in anything botanical. Which probably helped explain why she wasn't on board with the puppy, despite its floppy ears and stumpy tail. 

"We promise to walk him every day," Alicia added.

"You can't bring an alien life-form back to the city," Alison said firmly. "For all you know, it's going to grow to ten feet tall and try to eat us."

"You'd never try to eat us, would you?" Dusty snuggled the dog closer, grinning when he put his head down on her shoulder and appeared to go to sleep. "Come on, you know Biology have all sorts of weird alien life-forms in their labs. Much weirder than this little guy."

" _In their labs_ , being the important part of that sentence." Alison sighed, then turned to call over Dr Parrish, the senior scientist on the expedition.

"Oh, now, who's this little guy?" he asked, already reaching out to ruffle the puppy's ears. "Aren't you a sweet little thing, hmm?"

"Don't do that." Alison actually slapped his hands away. "Tell them that we can't bring him back to the city."

Parrish, because he was a giant sap, ruffled the puppy's ears again, and said, "Well…"

Which was how they ended up with a puppy living in one of the empty isolation suites off Medical until Biology could clear him.

*

Alicia went to visit the puppy – tentatively named Catul, which was apparently the Ancients' word for puppy – every day, and sometimes more than once a day. Usually, there was a scientist from Biology in there with him. Once, she found Major Lorne sitting on the floor outside the suite, watching Catul while he worked on his tablet, and a couple of times, Teyla was there with Torren, who, at three, was just hitting the dog-mad stage but still listened calmly as Teyla explained why they couldn't take Catul with him.

And then, three days after Catul had come through the gate with them, Alicia found Jennifer standing outside the isolation suite, watching Catul and smiling.

"Hi!" Alicia said, resisting the urge to throw her arms around Jennifer in the kind of exuberant hug that she knew Jennifer didn't really like. Jennifer had only been back on Atlantis for a couple of months, and the novelty of it hadn't worn off yet for Alicia, who'd expected never to see her again after Jennifer announced that she and Dr McKay were leaving the city to take up research positions at the same university, the name of which Alicia hadn't even bothered to remember.

When she'd come back, she had not brought Dr McKay with her; it had taken Alicia a month to confirm for certain that they'd broken up. She was still trying to figure out whether Jennifer was also over it enough for things not to be weird if Alicia asked her out.

Jennifer's warm smile every time she saw Alicia suggested that, even if she said no, she wouldn't object to being asked, not by Alicia. "Hi," she said. "I heard you brought a guest back, but I haven't had time to visit before today. He's lovely, how did you find him?"

"He found us." Alicia went to stand next to her, just close enough for their arms to brush. Inside his pod, Catul was chasing a ball like his life depended on it. "He came up and practically sat on my feet, out of nowhere."

"You didn't see him approach? I thought you were supposed to be observant." Jennifer grinned as she said it, taking the mild sting out of the teasing, but she had a point – Alicia and Dusty had both been watching the perimeter, and even allowing for the trees growing at the edge of the clearing, they should have seen Catul earlier than twenty feet away from them. "Maybe he's a ninja puppy."

"That must be it," Alicia agreed. He was very small, after all, and his glossy black fur did a better than average job of blending into shadows. "He didn't look like he had any intention of leaving, though."

"And you couldn't just leave him there."

Alicia shrugged. "The initial surveys didn't find any human or animal life signs on that planet. Dusty thinks he must have gone through by accident once, and not been able to get home."

"Oh, poor thing." Jennifer dropped to her knees, pressing one hand against the wall of the pod. Catul immediately came over to nudge his nose against the same patch, like he could actually touch her through the plastic. When Alicia knelt next to her, pressed her hand beside Jennifer's, he did the same thing. "He looks so lonely in there," Jennifer added. Catul nudged his nose to the plastic in front of her hand again, tongue hanging out of one side of his mouth in a doggy grin. 

"Did Bio say how long it'll be before they clear him?" Alicia asked.

"Probably a couple more days. They found an anomaly in his bloodwork, so they're doing more testing. It's probably nothing, or at least, nothing harmful to us, just a reflection of how he's not an Earth-dog."

"Poor puppy." Alicia ran her thumb across the plastic, like Catul would be able to feel it. He pressed his cheek to where she was petting anyway.

"Well, as soon as he is allowed in-person visitors, I'll let you know," Jennifer promised. 

"We could – maybe visit with him together?" Alicia kept her eyes firmly on Catul, but still caught the edge of Jennifer's smile.

"That sounds nice." Jennifer put her free hand on the floor, went to push herself up – and froze. "Um."

"What?" Alicia reached for her, and found herself only able to with her left hand. Her right was firmly stuck to the plastic of the isolation unit. "Oh crap."

*

"Well," Dr Harris said two hours later, looking like she was doing her level best not to smile, "At least now we know what the anomaly is."

"He's magnetic?" It wasn’t going to be that simple – it was never that simple – but Alicia wasn't giving up on optimism just yet. All right, so she and Jennifer were both stuck to an isolation pod, two crews of scientists (Engineering and Biology) were crawling over the two of them and Catul, and Majors Lorne and Teldy had both come down, apparently mainly to murmur sly remarks to each other and not quite laugh at Alicia and Jennifer. But on the bright side, the way they needed to twist to actually sit comfortably meant that she and Jennifer were basically leaning against each other, and Jennifer's hair, falling against Alicia's shoulder, smelt like pineapple.

"No," Harris said. "But he does appear to be secreting some sort of pheromone that's keeping the two of you in close proximity to the dog and each other."

"Why the two of them?" Lorne asked. Alicia felt Jennifer tense next to her, sure that they were thinking the same thing, and very carefully didn't look at her or Teldy.

"We really can't say without doing more tests," Harris said. Which was basically science-speak for 'hell if I know,' in Alicia's experience. "It's possible that if we could move the dog away from them, or the two of them away from each other, it would fade."

"We're not taking the dog into the city," Teldy said firmly. "Not even in an isolation suit, not until we know exactly what it's doing."

"Which means we also can't cut one of you loose," Lorne added, proving once more that he and Teldy had developed some kind of mind-meld since they'd taken over from Sheppard as joint military leaders of the expedition after everything that happened when the city went back to Earth.

Jennifer groaned, her head coming to rest more heavily against Alicia's shoulder. "Why do these things always happen on my day off? I had plans."

"Really?" Alicia asked, only just managing to keep the note of jealousy out of her voice. It wasn't like Jennifer didn't have friends in the city, and Alicia tried not to be the kind of woman who demanded all of her girlfriend's time.

Especially with a woman who wasn't actually her girlfriend, or even someone she'd been on a date with.

"Well, no," Jennifer admitted. "But I'm sure I could have found something better to do than sit here. Though I suppose the company could be worse."

She ducked her head, letting her hair fall over her face, but not before Alicia saw the way she blushed with the words. "Maybe someone could bring us a pack of cards?" she suggested.

*

In the end, Engineering and Biology retreated to their labs to see if they could reverse engineer a fix or figure out the pheromones respectively. Teldy and Lorne went back to whatever they did when they were running a city instead of laughing at their colleagues' predicaments, and Corporal Sanday, left behind to call for help if anything went more wrong, turned his back to them and opened up a book.

No-one brought them a pack of cards. 

"He really is cute," Jennifer said, twisting to look at Catul over her shoulder after about twenty minutes of sitting cross-legged and doing nothing. He hadn't really moved through the whole process, just laid down with his nose touching the plastic, and his eyes big and dark and sad every time Alicia looked at him.

"And yet somehow I don't think we're going to be allowed to keep him," she said. It was a shame – she'd never had a pet before coming to Atlantis, and she really liked the idea. And Catul was so cute.

But possibly evil; chaotic neutral at best.

Another fifteen minutes ticked by. 

"We should ask Anthropology if they can find out where he might have come from," Alicia said, before the rhythm of turning pages could send her to sleep. Maybe they could ask Sanday to read to them.

"Aw, that'd be nice." Jennifer twisted again, reaching for the plastic with her free hand but freezing before she actually touched it. "What do you think, do you want to find a real home?"

Catul didn't say anything, just pressed his nose more firmly to the plastic.

Another ten minutes crawled past. 

If only Alison and Dusty were around – sure, they'd have mocked Alicia endlessly, but at least that would have been entertaining. They'd both signed up for a trip to the Satedan settlement with Ronon though, and wouldn't be back until the evening.

"Do you think someone will bring us food, eventually?" Alicia asked.

Jennifer tipped her head to Sanday, who still had his head in his book. Alicia really hoped it was boring, and had a terrible ending.

"Right," she said quietly.

They'd been sitting there for an hour when Jennifer said, "Do you –" and the same time as Alicia said, "I don't know why we're doing this."

"This?"

"Sitting here like this, waiting for someone to find a fix." Alicia glared over her shoulder at Catul, who actually looked a little hopeful. If he could understand English, she was going to be really pissed off. "I know you're thinking the same thing as me."

Jennifer glanced at Alicia from the corner of her eye. "Am I?"

"He's a dog that emits pheromones that mysteriously trap people in close proximity. We were both touching the plastic when we talked about visiting him together. I know I meant it like a date, and I'm pretty sure you did too." Alicia tried to gesture, _there, see, proven_ , and nearly lost her balance when her stuck hand didn't move. 

"I did," Jennifer agreed softly. "Well, and I hoped you did too. I wasn't as sure as you."

Alicia, sure that she was smiling like a fool, and really hoping that she was right and they wouldn't end up stuck to each other, took Jennifer's free hand in her own. "So kiss me, and let's see if we're right."

Jennifer finally looked up, cheeks flushed red and eyes bright with amusement. "And here I thought you were going to woo me, Captain Vega."

"I don't woo one-handed," Alicia said, ignoring Sanday's snort of laughter. "Come on, it won't even be the weirdest thing to happen on Atlantis this week."

"Sad, but true," Jennifer said, and leaned in.

The kiss went on for a while, then for a bit longer when they realized they had both hands free, and probably would have gone on even longer if Sanday hadn't cleared his throat and asked if he should maybe call someone and let them know the problem was no longer urgent.

"Yeah," Alicia said, still holding Jennifer's hand, and barely resisting the urge to kiss her again. "But don't say it's not urgent, or we'll get stuck here all day."

Jennifer laughed, dipping in for another kiss. "Exactly," she said. "It's my day off – I've got plans."


End file.
